


Obsession

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28109058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: When Audrey comes out of the barn and gets all her memories back, she despises Nathan for what he's done. It doesn't help that she's got a good bit of Lexi left in her that won't take any shit.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Audrey was just waking up. She remembered being Lexi. The bar. The void. Making the jump. And now she was Audrey again. At least she thought so. Her memories were still so jumbled up. Nathan. He was here. She remembered Nathan. As Audrey. That meant that Audrey was the real her. “Hi,” she managed to say as he brushed her hair back, hand resting on her cheek. She looked around as she tried to settle the correct memories into the correct places, and the next person she noticed was Duke. Of course, Duke was here too. Then she noticed the guns. A lot of them. Surrounding them. She had no idea what they were doing there. What kind of mess they were in the middle of, and she was still trying to figure it out when Nathan got up, walked over to Jordan, and took the gun from her. She was as confused as ever, but once he came back and pressed it into her hand and pointed it at his chest, she started to get an idea of what was going on. “What are you doing?” she asked carefully, trying to figure out how to play this.

“The troubles haven’t ended,” Nathan told her. “I know what Howard told you. Killing me is the only way now.”

Audrey saw Nathan look over to Duke and the look clearly meant that they’d already had this argument and then Nathan was kissing her. She let the gun fall as she kissed him back hesitantly. She finally got all her memories back in the correct places, including everything that happened when she went in the barn and she was filled a fury towards Nathan like she’d never known. When Nathan grabbed the gun and put it back to his chest as he begged her to kill him, she had never been more tempted in her life, but that wasn’t a line she would cross. Ever. That didn’t mean that she was going to let him off scot free though. She dropped the gun to the ground and slapped him as hard as she could, reveling in the fact that he could actually feel that at least and not at all sorry about the handprint on his face. “You absolute bastard!” she snapped. “Our /son/ was in that barn!”

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said, taken aback at her fury. “I will never forgive myself for that. I just…I couldn’t lose you…” 

“So instead you shot and killed an unarmed man in cold blood, murdered our /son/ along with him, and sacrificed this entire town to the troubles?!” 

“I love you, Audrey. I couldn’t…”

She slapped him again. To even hear those words out of his mouth when it was so painfully clear that they weren’t true. “There’s a difference between love and obsession, Nathan. Learn it,” she said hatefully. 

“Audrey, that’s not…”

She cut him off again. She wasn’t nearly done yet. “If you really loved me, then you would have respected my decision. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have even considered asking me to live with so many lives being the cost of mine. You would have understood that helping people with the troubles, protecting them, /saving/ them, was worth far more to me than my own life.” 

“But we can still save them,” Nathan pointed out, putting the gun back in her hand. 

“So you want to make me a murderer too?” she scoffed as she tossed it again. “News flash, Nathan. I’m not like you. If it would work, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but it’s dependent on my loving you and I promise you, any love I might have had for you died with our son,” she sneered.

Jordan had enough. She had been enjoying watching Nathan get castigated, but her refusal to kill him was the last straw. She grabbed someone’s gun and went over to point it at Nathan. “Shoot him!” she ordered anxiously. 

Audrey went over and stood in between the gun and Nathan who was still kneeling on the ground, completely unable to even muster up the strength to move after his whole world came crashing down around his ears. “You don’t want to do this Jordan,” she said gently. 

“Yes, I do,” Jordan cried. 

“Jordan, if she doesn’t love him then her killing him isn’t going to end the troubles,” Duke jumped in. He felt pretty bad for Nathan right about now and he’d winced along with every blow Audrey took, both physical and verbal, but honestly, he couldn’t exactly blame her. Not with everything laid out on the table like that. That didn’t mean that she would just let Nathan be killed any more than Audrey would apparently. 

“Not to mention, even if I did love him and it would work…it wouldn’t end the troubles in any way you’d like,” Audrey told her. 

“I don’t think you fully understand just how much our lives have been ruined by these troubles. Ending them is all that matters,” Jordan said desperately. 

“Listen, there is a reason that this solution hasn’t been used,” Audrey tried to explain. “It’s never been anything but a failsafe. In case things got too far out of hand…”

“I’d call losing the barn and any way of controlling the troubles out of hand,” another of the guard members spoke up with a scoff. 

“Killing the person I love the most will end the troubles, yes,” Audrey decided that blunt was the only way to do this. “But it will do that by killing every troubled person in the world. Whether their trouble has been triggered or not. Every man woman and child who is troubled, or even /related/ to a troubled person will die. /That’s/ how this solution ends the troubles.” 

“And we’re supposed to believe that?” Jordan asked as she felt the icy claw of fear grip her heart. If that was true…they were all doomed. 

“I believe her,” Vince spoke up for the first time. He realized how precarious his hold on the guard was if so many followed a hothead like Jordan, so he had been waiting to insert himself when he could be sure that he wouldn’t lose them all. 

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Jordan scoffed. 

“A few days before she left, Lucy came to me,” Dave jumped in, knowing why Vince believed it and wanting to help. “She wanted to borrow a gun from me. Of course, I gave it to her. She brought it back the next day though and when I asked if everything was okay, she said that the cost was too high. That losing everyone she’d ever helped wasn’t the way. I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but…”

“But if Audrey is correct, it makes it perfectly clear,” Vince finished for him. 

“Fine, then I’ll shoot him myself,” Jordan snapped, not willing to take the chance that Audrey was right with that kind of evidence. 

As Jordan tried to move around Audrey to get a bead on Nathan, Audrey moved with her. “Jordan, don’t,” Audrey said firmly. 

“You can’t seriously be suggesting that we let him get away with this?! He killed your son!” Jordan said incredulously. 

“Oh, I don’t plan to let him ‘get away’ with anything,” Audrey said with a cold smirk. “I just think death is too easy. I mean, look at him. He’d probably welcome it right about now.” 

“So you’re suggesting torture?” Jordan asked skeptically. 

“Not physical torture, no,” Audrey shook her head. She would never advocate going that far. That was even worse than murder in her book. “But think about it. What’s the bigger punishment? Death, or having to live every day facing what he’s done. Seeing all the lives that he’s destroyed. Knowing everything that he lost.” She knew she was laying it on a bit thick, but she had to right now. She had to actually believe that lest she be too tempted to cross the line and just let Jordan kill him. Not to mention she had to sell the idea that this was worse if she had any hope of the guard accepting it. Once she had a chance to calm down, she might feel a little less glee at the thought of his suffering, but everything was still so fresh on her mind and she was still reeling over it all. 

Jordan considered that for a long moment, including scrutinizing Audrey and trying to see the truth there. When she saw that she really did hate Nathan just as much as the rest of them did, she lowered the gun, but still kept it ready. “So what? We just let him off scot free?” 

“Of course not,” Audrey huffed. “But truth is, we’re gonna need all the help we can get with the troubles still running amuck. Even if it is from him.” 

“Community service then,” Vince nodded, seeing the sense in the idea. 

“Jordan,” Audrey said gently, reached out to her arm to lower her gun the rest of the way, not missing her sharp intake of breath when Audrey touched her skin. “We will keep looking for a way to end the troubles. We’re not giving up on anything. I promise.” They may have had their differences in the past, but none of that mattered anymore. Even then they had both wanted the same thing. An end to the troubles. 

Jordan let Audrey push the gun down before nodding curtly. “Fine,” she said as she turned and walked away stiffly, the rest of the guard following.


	2. Chapter 2

Duke went over to help Nathan to his feet as they left, and Nathan immediately turned to Audrey. “Audrey, I…”

“I would suggest, Nathan, that you give me some time to get my head together and mourn our son before trying to talk to me again,” Audrey said with forced calm, glad when Nathan just nodded despondently and turned to walk away. 

“I’m sorry, Audrey,” Duke walked up with a sigh, wondering how much of her anger was reserved for him. “I was too slow. I couldn’t stop him. I let my guard down…”

Audrey cut him off with a hug. “You tried, Duke. I saw everything that happened. It was projected into the barn. You did your best.”

Duke wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back tightly. He’d missed her so much. “I just wish it was good enough.”

“Me too,” Audrey said with a sad smile before turning to the new girl who apparently wasn’t with the guard. “We haven’t met. I’m Audrey.” 

“Jennifer,” she introduced herself with a smile. 

“Her trouble connected her to the barn. It’s how we found you,” Duke explained. 

“Then thank you,” Audrey said gratefully. She didn’t mind dying for a purpose but dying for nothing would have sucked. 

“You’re welcome,” Jennifer assured her. 

Audrey nodded to Vince and Dave before asking the group as a whole, “So who do I need to talk to about getting my job back, and please don’t say Nathan?” 

Duke barked a laugh, but Vince was the one to answer. “Dwight is the current police chief and I can’t see Nathan ever holding such a position again.” 

“Okay. Dwight’s a good choice. I can work with him,” Audrey decided as they turned and walked back towards the vehicles, Audrey riding with Duke. “Is my apartment still available, I hope?” 

“Jennifer’s actually been staying there the last few days,” Duke said hesitantly. 

“But it’s okay. I don’t mind finding somewhere else. I mean, it’s still yours. All your stuff is there and all and I haven’t messed with anything,” Jennifer babbled. 

Audrey cut her off and said, “I’m not gonna kick you out in the cold. You’re welcome to stay on the couch as long as you need.” 

“Or I have a spare room on my boat,” Duke jumped in with his own offer before his cell phone rang and interrupted the conversation. When he hung up it was with a sigh. “It looks like we’ve got another trouble.” 

“Since the Gull is on the way, you can just drop me off there,” Jennifer suggested. “We can figure out sleeping arrangements later.” She wasn’t even sure she was going to stay in town at all anyway, but now wasn’t the time for that discussion. 

Duke operated as a decent buffer between Nathan and Audrey, and Audrey wished that she’d had time to talk to Dwight about finding a solution that didn’t involve her working with Nathan before they ended up with this case, but she could manage this time. As long as Duke was a buffer. Unfortunately it didn’t last long before Duke was possessed and then to top off her bad day, ended up locking her and Nathan in a storage room together. After initially trying and failing to get out, Nathan turned to her and tried for his last hope. “I have to ask…all that before…was it just to keep the guard from killing me or having to kill me yourself?” 

Audrey glared hatefully at him. “No. It wasn’t. Maybe there will come a day when I don’t despise you anymore, but there will never be a day where we even become friends again, much less anything more.” 

Nathan swallowed heavily around the lump in his throat and nodded, unable to bring himself to say another word. He’d lost everything on a desperate gamble and he had no one to blame but himself. “Okay. I get that and I’ll try to stay out of your way. But I’ll never stop loving you.”

“You mean you’ll never stop obsessing over me,” Audrey snapped. “You can feel my touch and you’ve latched onto that at the expense of everything else. Can’t you see that? If it was really /me/ you loved, you wouldn’t have jumped into bed with Sarah the second you got to the past.”

“She was still you,” Nathan tried to justify. 

“No, she wasn’t,” Audrey said firmly. “Each of my personalities are very different people. Sarah was an army nurse. I could never do that.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t the same in all the important ways,” Nathan pointed out. 

“Yeah. It does. See, they were in the process of making me the next person when everything imploded and I still remember all that. In the barn, I was Lexi. And Lexi is nothing like Audrey. The only thing my personalities share is the desire and ability to help with the troubles. That’s it. Ask Vince and Dave if you don’t believe me. They knew both Sarah and Lucy. And even if you /were/ right…you could never have figured that much out in the less than a day you were there.” She really didn’t want to be talking about this, but she realized that if she didn’t get him to understand that, then she was never going to get a moment’s peace. At least not as long as they lived in the same town and she couldn’t abandon Haven to the troubles any more than she could stand to let the guard kick Nathan out of town. He didn’t deserve to be able to run away from what he’d done and they really /did/ need all the help they could get. 

Once they finally made it out, they realized that the kid in Duke’s body was on the way to possibly kill his own body. Audrey made Nathan stay with a rather shaken up Jennifer, not noticing the look on Jennifer’s face at the idea, as she rushed after Duke. With any luck, she could just get the drink ticket out of the kid’s hand, get Duke back, and then talk him down from his trouble. That would be the ideal situation. Unfortunately, like usual, the ideal situation didn’t work out and she was left with only one way to play it. “I’m sorry, Duke,” she said sadly as she stepped aside. She knew how much he despised using his curse. Hopefully the fact that it wasn’t actually /him/ using it would help it not hit him as hard. 

Once it was over, Duke headed home and Audrey went back to the station to try and talk to Dwight, glad when she found him in his office. “It’s good to have you back,” Dwight told her first thing as he slid a gun and badge across the desk to her. 

“Thank you,” Audrey said with a smile, not reaching out to take the offered items. “It’s good to be back. But I was hoping to talk to you about some changes.” 

“What kind of changes?” Dwight asked worriedly. 

“Now that I know more about who I am and why I exist, I don’t like the idea of regular police work. I’m here to help with the troubles. That’s it,” Audrey told him. That and she still had too much of Lexi to really be comfortable with a badge. 

“This is still the best place to do that,” Dwight pointed out, hoping against hope that they weren’t about to lose her. 

“No, I know,” she agreed. “But there’s also the fact that I can’t work with Nathan. I mean, I can deal with being in the same building and all and running across each other in passing, but I can’t be his partner. I can’t share an office. I just can’t be that close.” 

“So you don’t want your job back,” Dwight sighed.

“Actually, I’m asking for a different kind of job,” she told him, hating the resignation she could see in his face. 

“What kind of job?” Dwight asked perking up a bit. 

“I was thinking something more like consultant or liaison or something like that. Troubles and only troubles,” she told him. 

Dwight thought it over for a minute before saying, “You realize that would still involve working with Nathan, right? He would still be at least somewhat involved.” 

“I know. But he would be dealing more with the police aspect while I would be working directly with the troubled people. He could just pass on any leads to me and I could let him know when I need more information and we could keep a polite working distance.” 

Dwight considered how that would work before nodding slowly. He could back Nathan up himself when it was necessary and do the same for Audrey and maybe Duke would even keep pitching in. The office might be difficult, but he was sure he could do some shuffling around and get her an office of her own. “Okay. We can work with that.” He reached out and took the badge back. “Since you’re still certified for the gun and a department employee, you can keep that one. And here’s a department phone. We’ll just call you whenever we have a trouble issue, so keep it handy. I’ll work on the office situation and should have a solution for you by Monday,” he told her. 

“Perfect. Thanks for being willing to work with me on this,” Audrey said happily. 

“Thank /you/ for still being willing to help this town with the troubles,” Dwight told her. He’d gotten the low-down from Jordan on what happened between her and Nathan and hopefully talked Jordan out of any of her crazier ideas to get rid of the troubles and made a split-second decision to bring her in on the research too. “Vince and I have actually been trying to research ways to get rid of the troubles completely. If you’re willing, we can show you everything and you can help out there too.”

“Yeah. I would actually really appreciate that. I was going to start doing the same thing, but if I don’t have to start from scratch it would be helpful,” Audrey agreed. 

“I have to warn you. We don’t actually have anything. Just a crapload of information that means nothing,” Dwight told her, not wanting her to get her hopes up too high. 

“That’s okay. I learned some things in the barn that might help to make sense of things a little more.”

“What kind of things?” Dwight asked hopefully. 

“I’m not even sure yet really. I need some time to just sit down and get my head straight and figure all that out, you know? It’s not stuff I got the normal way. More like some kind of partial fragmented download of information or something like that and I’m still trying to make sense of it. I’m just hoping that something can help.” 

“Yeah, okay. That makes sense,” Dwight nodded. He could see how that would take some time. “Why don’t you take the weekend to work on that, troubles permitting, and I’ll show you what we have on Monday?” 

“That sounds perfect. Thanks Dwight,” Audrey said relieved. “I guess I’ll see you Monday. Unless a trouble crops up between now and then.”


	3. Chapter 3

Audrey picked up her car from the department lot where it had been sitting since she left and headed back to the Gull. When she got there, she got a whole bottle of whiskey from the bar before heading up to her apartment. When she saw no sign of Jennifer or her stuff, she assumed that she’d taken Duke up on his offer, not that she could blame her. The idea of a couch versus an entire room was a no-brainer. She was still feeling a little bit of the claustrophobia that had hit once Lexi had realized that she was trapped in that bar with nowhere else to go, so she just grabbed a couple glasses and headed out to the balcony to sit and look out over the water. She brought two just in case Duke or Jennifer popped up to chat. She wasn’t sure if she wanted company or not right now, so she decided to leave it to chance. 

She had been lost in her thoughts as she sipped her drink for quite a while before she heard footsteps and turned to see Duke. She smiled at him and poured the other glass and held it out in offer. “Whiskey huh? Must be a rougher night than I thought,” he joked before he took a long sip as he leaned back casually against the railing. 

“Not too bad,” Audrey chuckled. “I guess that’s one of those Lexi things I picked up.”

“Lexi things?” Duke asked curiously. 

“Yeah, they were already overwriting my personality and memories when I got out. I was gonna be a bartender named Lexi DeWitt. Some of her kinda stuck,” she shrugged. “Still not sure how much yet though.”

“Hence the soul-searching with alcoholic assistance,” Duke nodded in understanding. “I can go…”

“No, you’re fine. I could use come company for a while,” she told him, not really wanting him to go. She hadn’t realized how much she just missed the quiet moments with him until now. 

Duke wasn’t going to argue and just nodded as he said a soft, “I’m sorry about James.” 

“Thank you,” she sighed sadly before bringing up something that had confused her. “I’m surprised that you seemed like you expected me to still have feelings for Nathan after what he did.” Duke was usually so much better at understanding her than that. 

“It wasn’t so much that I expected it as it was that he was so sure of it. I haven’t really had a whole lot of time to think. I’ve only been out of the barn for a few days myself,” Duke shrugged. 

“Wait…you were in the barn?” Audrey asked in bafflement. 

“You don’t remember either?” Duke asked, not sure why he was so surprised about that. “Apparently we ran into each other at some point,” he told her, undoing his shirt and showing her the fading bruises. 

It took her a second to realize what she was seeing and then she reached out and fitted her fingers perfectly against them. “That was…”

“We think it was you pushing me out to keep me from getting trapped with you, but I don’t remember it. It only seemed like I was there for a few seconds to me, but it ended up being six months. 

“Why were you in there in the first place? And how?” Audrey asked confused. 

“When we realized that the barn was going down I jumped in to try and get you out. From what I was told, I dove in just as it disappeared and they wrote both of us off as dead,” Duke told her. 

“So you’ve only been back for a few days yourself?” she asked, not really wanting to get into the emotional impact of everything that she felt about the way he came after her without a second thought to himself. 

“Yeah, like I said it felt like I was only there for a few seconds and then I was falling. Landed in a fish tank in Boston and ended up handcuffed to a hospital bed for half the day before Jennifer turned up, having heard our voices in the barn and then saw me on the news, and she helped me bust out, we grabbed Nathan and started looking for you,” Duke told her the story. “The fact that we had a new trouble every freaking day slowed things down a bit, but once Jennifer overheard that the barn was dying and that you would be going with it, I bowed out of the troubles and let Nathan handle that while I worked with Jennifer to find you.”

“I’m surprised Nathan didn’t drop everything to help too,” she huffed. 

“He tried, but I wouldn’t let him. He and Jennifer didn’t get on too well. She doesn’t deal well with pressure and he was more than a little intense. I had to step in and force him to back off more than once when she started freaking out. Since she could only hear the barn when she was relaxed…”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Audrey said relieved. “How’s she doing after all the mess from earlier?” If she had issues with pressure that whole thing must have been hard for her. 

“She went back to Boston actually,” Duke sighed. “Since her connection to the barn isn’t needed anymore…and she knows that she’s not just crazy now, she wanted to get back to her life. I thought about trying to get her to stay, but we talked and decided that since there’s no end in sight to the troubles, it would be safer for her to be far away.”

“At least that’s one less person we have to worry about protecting,” Audrey tried to find a bright side to Duke losing yet another friend. At least this one wasn’t to death though. 

“That’s a plus. Now if only I could get rid of Wade that easily,” Duke sighed. 

“Wade?” Audrey asked, realizing how much she’d really missed even just in the few days that he was back before her. 

“Sorry. My brother,” Duke said, realizing that she didn’t know about him yet. “After I supposedly died, he came up to handle my affairs and kept everything running until I got back and just commuting back and forth to New York. Spending so much time here had his wife turn to other places for companionship though and he just found out a couple days ago so now he doesn’t want to leave.” 

“I didn’t even know you had a brother,” Audrey said curiously. 

“Half-brother technically, but we were never close. He came down a few weeks every summer before Dad died, but after that contact has been sporadic at best,” Duke told her. “I hadn’t even talked to him in over a decade before all this mess.” 

“Well maybe this is a chance to reconnect,” Audrey suggested. 

“Except for the fact that the guard doesn’t want him here. Doesn’t want to risk another Crocker running around with the family curse, and I can’t really blame them. I don’t want him to be stuck with it either. He won’t have as easy a time fighting the pull as I do,” Duke sighed. 

“That’s a good point,” Audrey winced. That was the last thing they needed and if Duke ended up losing his brother like that after everything else he’d been through it would tear him apart. “I’m surprised /he’s/ willing to risk it.”

“He doesn’t know anything about it and I don’t want him to know. I need to keep him protected from all this mess.”

“I get that, but I don’t think you /can/ keep him protected,” Audrey said regretfully. 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try,” Duke said stubbornly, reaching over to refill his glass as he took a seat next to her. 

“Try and think of it from his point of view,” Audrey told him. “He spent six months thinking you were dead and living with all the regrets about not being there more and then there you are, giving him the chance to fix it all. Not to mention losing his wife on top of it. I don’t think there’s any way you’re getting him to leave without a very good reason. And if you don’t give him one, and he stays, and the worst happens…”

Duke huffed as he thought about her words. “So you’re saying that the only way I’m gonna keep him out of it is to come clean.”

“Unfortunately, yeah. I think so,” she told him, refilling her own glass. “And even if it doesn’t work. If he still won’t leave…at least you’ll know you tried everything you could.” 

Duke considered the matter for a long moment as he finished his drink and then he sighed. “I guess I need to go have a talk with my brother then.” He sat the glass down and got up. 

“You want some backup?” she offered. 

“Nah, I should do this myself,” he told her with a grateful smile. “Thanks though.” 

“If you need anything you know where I am,” she told him as he left.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Duke was knocking on her door with two cups of coffee and she let him in with a smile. It seemed that he’d missed their quiet times as much as she had. Once they were sitting, and she thanked him for the Bailey’s in the coffee, he told her, “It seems I owe you thanks. Wade is leaving town this afternoon.”

“That’s great,” Audrey said relieved. “I just wish I’d had a chance to meet him first.”

“You’re welcome to join us for lunch before he leaves,” Duke offered. 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on the whole brother thing,” Audrey shook her head. 

“You won’t be intruding. Really. It’ll be nice to have a buffer of sorts. Things are pretty tense with us after last night,” Duke assured her. 

“If you’re sure…”

“I am,” Duke said quickly. 

“Okay. Then I’ll be there. Trouble permitting of course.”

“Of course,” Duke chuckled. 

“So what happened to make things so tense?” Audrey asked gently. 

Duke sighed heavily and took a long sip of his own liberally spiked coffee before he answered. “Well at first he didn’t believe me. Not surprising. Who would right? But then once I convinced him, he was all talking about how it was his birthright too and I had no right to keep it from him.”

“Oh crap,” Audrey winced and had to remind herself that he was leaving town so at least it must have gotten better. Or worse. 

“Yeah. So I nipped over to the bar and grabbed Nathan who’d spent most of the night getting beyond sloshed…”

“Not surprising,” Audrey shrugged, over the blind rage after a good night’s sleep, but not enough to have much pity for him. “I’m guessing you gave him a demonstration then?” 

“Yeah. And I didn’t try and fight it so much since I wanted him to see how bad it could get. Obviously I fought the killing Nathan part, but other than that I just let it go,” Duke told her. 

“How’s Nathan?” Audrey asked with only a hint of concern. 

“He’ll live. And he’ll be out of the hospital by tonight. Would have been sooner but they wanted to keep him for observation with the concussion along with the massive amounts of alcohol in his system, so…”

“Couldn’t have been too bad with only one day in the hospital either way,” she shrugged. 

“Yeah it faded before I did too much damage and I comped his rather large bar bill in return anyway and since he couldn’t actually feel it, I would argue that he came out up for the night,” Duke chuckled.

Audrey wasn’t buying the forced nonchalance and reached over and put her hand on Duke’s arm. “You did what you had to do to make your brother see how bad it was. And Nathan volunteered.” 

Duke took a shaky breath, once again taken aback at how easily she could see right through him. “Doesn’t mean I liked it,” he muttered. 

“I know,” she said sadly trailing her thumb over the back of his wrist comfortingly. “And that’s why you could never turn into your father.” 

“I caught Wade with a punch too when he tried to stop me right before it faded,” Duke also admitted. 

“And he’s pissed about it?” Audrey asked wondering if that was where the tension came in. 

“Not really. More freaked out about the very idea. I mean, seeing me lose it like that and almost kill one of my best friends just because of a few drops of blood…” Duke shrugged helplessly. 

“At least he doesn’t want it for himself anymore,” she pointed out. 

“I’m just glad it wasn’t all for nothing,” Duke agreed. “So anyway, I got back from dropping Nathan at the hospital…told them he got mugged…and Wade was already packing his things, but then it came out that he didn’t really have any money or anywhere to go or anything since all his accounts were joint with his wife and they’re frozen during the divorce.”

“Oh god. That sucks,” Audrey said sympathetically. 

“Yeah, I mean, he opened his own account for his pay and all, but it takes time to get switched over and all, so I offered to grab him enough cash to get him settled for a couple months if he’d wait until this afternoon to leave so I can hit the bank once they open,” Duke explained. 

“Well if you need any help, let me know. I mean, I don’t have a /lot/ of money, but…”

Duke cut her off with a laugh. “I’m good. The ten thousand I’m giving him will barely make a dent. I appreciate the thought though. It means a lot.” He wasn’t used to having anyone that he could count on to help him. It was a rather new experience for him and it meant more than she would ever know. 

“You know I’m always here for you,” she assured him. “I know you don’t like asking for help, but just don’t forget that.” 

“I’ll try,” he said with a soft smile before getting up to refill their coffees from her coffee maker. “So about what you said yesterday…how sure are you that the killing someone you love thing will also kill everyone troubled?” he changed the subject. 

“A little sure?” she said with a sheepish shrug. 

“You know the guard isn’t gonna buy that answer,” he chuckled. 

“Which is why I didn’t tell them that part,” she replied amusedly. “I’m sure I can count on you not to rat me out.”

“Oh I don’t know. You know how tight the guard and I are. I’m not so sure about keeping secrets from my best buddies,” Duke joked. 

Audrey laughed and shook her head before getting back to the subject. “But no, it’s almost like I’ve gotten some information from the barn somehow, but nothing complete or solid. More like ideas and impressions that I have to rely on my instincts for if that makes sense.” 

“Yeah, it kinda does,” Duke nodded as he thought about it. “You think maybe the barn knew it was dying and tried to give you what you might need?”

“That’s a definite possibility, but it was too damaged to get it all across very well,” Audrey told him, getting an idea of her own, but she would have to talk to Dwight and probably Vince too first. The fact that he’d figured out in seconds what it took her half the night to even consider was proof that his outside the box thinking and quick mind would be more than helpful for their project. 

“So not only do you have the memories of a whole other person, but also the barn itself? No wonder you’re a little off.” 

“Oh the Lexi memories are easy. So much so that I just deal with that part whenever my head starts hurting too much from the rest,” she chuckled. “I mean, I’m still Audrey. The same Audrey that helps with the troubles. The same Audrey that…went to Colorado with you. Just with a bit of a Lexi twist is all.” 

“How different does that make you?” Duke asked curiously. “I mean, I see you’re back to your normal clothes, but still with the abundance of jewelry, and you didn’t balk at the spiked coffee and switched to whiskey instead of martinis, but other than that…?”

“Well I’m not taking my badge back for one thing,” Audrey shrugged. “Lexi was rather anti-cop, so juggling that in my head would be a nightmare. I’m still working for the department to help with the troubles, of course, but as a consultant type instead.” 

“Anti-cop huh?” Duke asked amusedly. 

“She was a bit on the wild side,” Audrey admitted. “Regular runaway as a teenager until it stuck when she went cross-country with her stoner boyfriend at sixteen. Never got into the hard drugs but was a regular pot smoker, drank and partied all the time and had more than a few run ins with the cops.”

“So can we expect that sort of behavior from you?” Duke raised an amusedly curious eyebrow.

“Not to that degree, no,” she laughed and shook her head. “Like I said, I’m still me. I might drink a little more often and have an easier time relaxing when I’m not at work, but that’s about it. Hell, if we can ever manage to get these troubles under control and I can afford to be out of commission for a while I might even give a little pot a try, but I’m definitely not the social butterfly Lexi was.” 

“That’s good. I kinda liked the old Audrey, but I always thought you could stand a little loosening up,” Duke grinned. 

“As you’ve made clear more than once,” she joked. 

He considered offering her some weed, but decided against it. Until he had a better feel of how her loosening up would shake out, he wasn’t going to blatantly admit to illegal activity. Plus, she’d said that she wouldn’t do it unless the troubles were under control anyway, so there was no point. He did get that though. She was basically on call twenty-four seven, so she couldn’t be too out of it at any point just in case. When he looked up and noticed the time, he got up to put his cup in the sink and take hers from her too. Coffee mugs tended to be very fluid between her apartment and the Cape Rouge. “I should probably head out. The bank will be opening soon. Be downstairs at twelve for lunch?” 

“I’ll do my best and let you know if something comes up,” Audrey promised.


	5. Chapter 5

Lunch was interesting and Audrey did appreciate the opportunity to meet Wade. Wade also seemed to appreciate having a buffer between them as much as Duke did and was sporting a decent black eye. The biggest thing that she had trouble wrapping her head around was the idea that he and Duke were related. They were about as opposite as it was possible to be. When Wade headed out after lunch, Duke went back to the boat and Audrey looked after him sadly. She knew that he was feeling the loss of his brother, despite the fact that him leaving was for the best, but she also knew that he dealt best with those things alone. He was probably heading to take something apart and rebuild it or move some things around that really didn’t need to be moved. 

Audrey headed back upstairs and sat on the balcony again continuing to try and get her head straight and reach for the barely formed ideas and impressions that the barn had left her. She’d grabbed a notebook and pencil this time to keep her hands busy and maybe the absentminded doodling would pull some insights from her subconscious too. She barely moved from her spot until after the sun went down when she went in to have a light dinner before bed. It was just so rare to have such nice days here, much less nice days that weren’t busy with troubles, she had every intention of taking advantage while she could. 

When it was raining the next day, she stayed inside and took to writing down everything she could and categorizing it based on how sure she was. So much of it was hard to put into words, but once she got everything down she realized that it was more than she expected. It still wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things and there was still a lot that was just beyond her reach, almost like words on the tip of her tongue, but it was progress at least. She could only hope that something somewhere would jog them loose. She didn’t see Duke at all that day, but come Monday morning he was at her door with coffee again before work. She wouldn’t always have a scheduled time to go in, but this morning would be about getting her new office and being let in on Dwight and Vince’s research. The rest of the time she would just go when she got a call. 

When she got to the station she found both Vince and Dwight sitting in the latter’s office and took a seat next to Vince in front of the desk. “Before we get started, I was hoping to talk to you about bringing Duke in on this too.”

“No, absolutely not,” Vince shook his head. 

“You don’t trust him?” Audrey asked incredulously. “After everything he’s done to help this town, you still don’t trust him?” 

“I trust him as far as I will ever trust a Crocker, but our research contains far too much information on troubled people for either of us to be comfortable handing it to any Crocker,” Dwight said apologetically. 

“He is doing well at controlling his trouble right now, but there is no telling when that could change,” Vince added. 

Audrey huffed and nodded. “Okay then. I guess I’ll pass on your research,” she decided. 

“You feel that strongly about getting Duke involved?” Dwight asked incredulously. 

“Yes. I do. Duke has a way of thinking outside the box and putting pieces together like no one I’ve ever seen. I think we’ll get a lot farther with his help than without it,” Audrey told them. 

“I see. It may be better to work from two different angles after all,” Vince reached his own decision. “If we share what we are comfortable with from our research will you do the same?” Some of it he didn’t mind Duke seeing. The parts that didn’t involve family trees and specifics about individual troubles. 

“I can agree to that,” Audrey nodded, a little miffed at the attitude, but not completely surprised. If they weren’t going to share everything then neither would she, but she would share the basics. She would just have to go through her notebook and separate out the basics. 

“Okay, since that’s settled, we’ll just get you what we can share tomorrow, and in the meantime I’ll show you to your new office,” Dwight said as he got up, prompting the other two to do the same and Vince took the large folder he’d brought with him when he left. Once the got into her new office, Dwight told her, “I know it’s pretty small, but since it’s a one person office it shouldn’t be too bad. Especially since you won’t have as much paperwork.” 

“What will I be doing as far as paperwork?” Audrey asked him. 

“Just a written statement about what happened on each case. So I have something for the records,” Dwight told her. 

“That’ll be easy,” she agreed. Once he left her to it, she went to the office she used to share with Nathan to clean out her space and move it to her new office. She took a deep breath to steady herself before heading inside to find Nathan sitting at his desk with his arm in a sling and face still relatively swollen. 

Nathan spoke before she could and told her, “I hear you’re moving to a new office.”

“Yeah. It’s better that way,” she told him calmly. 

“I guess,” he sighed. “Listen, I thought about what you said. A lot. And you might be right. I just want to say that I’m sorry. I screwed up. Badly.”

“Yeah. You did,” she said bluntly. “But I’m glad you realize that now. Hopefully we can manage to work together civilly?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I can do that.” 

“Good,” she nodded as she put the last of her personal items in the box and then moved to the office supplies. She decided to throw him a bone and just hope she didn’t come to regret it. “Thank you for helping out Duke the other night with the whole Wade issue. I’m sorry you got hurt so bad.”

“S’fine. I didn’t feel it,” he shrugged unconcerned. “I owe him a lot more than that. I owe you too. So if you ever need anything…no strings attached…”

“I appreciate it,” she said politely as she finished packing up her things and headed out. She had just barely finished setting up her new desk when Dwight knocked on the doorframe of her open door to let her know they had a trouble case. Someone was freezing people. She had to catch herself a few times to keep from doing the police legwork, but she found that it was much easier to piece the clues together when she wasn’t focused on the minutia of the case and it didn’t take long for her to figure out who the troubled guy was, track him down, and talk him out of his trouble. She was in the process of talking to him when a text came in from Nathan telling her that he was next on the countdown and had fifteen minutes, so she stepped up her game and got him to call the girl he was crushing on to ask her on a coffee date and she left right at lunchtime, feeling more than a little good about things. 

Instead of taking her lunch, she went back to the station and wrote up a quick report for Dwight and put it on his desk before heading out for the day and getting a late lunch. She knew they wouldn’t all be this easy so she was gonna take the time off while she could. Once she got home, she grabbed her notebook and headed to the Rouge to find Duke. Not that it was hard. He was sitting on the deck fiddling with the wiring of some instrument she had no idea of. “Short day?” he asked curiously. 

“Yeah. We had a trouble, but it got cleared up pretty quick. You got a little time to talk?” 

“For you? Always,” he chuckled. “What’s up?” he asked, only glancing up from what he was doing for a second. 

“So, I’ve been going over the things I learned from the barn and all, and I was gonna see about researching ways to stop the troubles for good and I was thinking you might want to help?” she asked hopefully. 

“I’m not really the best at research,” he pointed out. 

“No, I know. I can do all the book work part. I mean for ideas and brainstorming and that kind of thing. The parts you’re good at.” 

“Then yeah. I’m always available to bounce ideas off of,” he shrugged. “What do you have so far?” 

She took a deep breath and started with the hard part. If he was going to hate her and bail, she wanted to get it out of the way before they got too deep into it. “Well…for a start…I think that I was the one who created the troubles in the first place…the original me, I mean.” 

Duke almost dropped the nav console he was rewiring, but managed to set it down gently and then give her his full attention. “Run that by me again?”


	6. Chapter 6

“I think that my original self was the one who created the troubles,” she said again. “That’s why I was the one who always had to come back and help with them. And why I was being punished by having to sacrifice so much every time.” 

“That’s…wow,” Duke breathed out. “That’s definitely a big one. I’m guessing we’re keeping that to ourselves.”

“I’d prefer it, yeah,” she said hesitantly, biting her lip nervously. 

Duke narrowed his eyes at her scrutinizingly, catching her demeanor and said, “You know it’s not /your/ fault right? Audrey Parker had nothing to do with creating the troubles. That doesn’t mean that some of the small, minded idiots around here wouldn’t try and take it out on you anyway, but that doesn’t make them right.” 

Audrey’s lips twitched in a smile as the tension fled from her body. At least most of it. “I still /feel/ responsible though.”

“I guess I can understand that. Long as you know you’re actually not,” Duke told her getting a nod in response. “Do you think there’s any way that could help us undo them?” 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I mean, I would think if it were that easy it would have been done a long time ago. All anyone would have had to do was tell any one of my personalities how to do it.” 

“That’s true. So no easy answers. Not that it’s a surprise,” Duke huffed a laugh. “I’m guessing you have more than that?”

“Yeah. The troubles themselves are rooted in hatred. Like really deep hatred. That’s why only negative emotions trigger them. Rage, grief, fear, guilt and so on,” she explained. 

Duke tilted his head as he took a moment to consider that. “There might be something we can work with there,” he said leadingly inviting her to continue. Within minutes they were both bent over her notebook and making notations and ideas right up until dinnertime and Audrey followed him in and they continued chatting while he cooked, and they ate. Not all of it was about the research, but it was a frequent topic when one of them thought of something new and when Audrey went home after dinner, she felt like they had actually made some progress. 

The next morning, Duke brought her coffee again and they chatted for a little while before getting into the ideas that had come to them both overnight. When they decided to head downstairs for lunch, Duke caught sight of something and stopped, leaning over the banister to see into the nook between the stairs and the building and he sighed heavily. “Looks like our easy day is over.” 

“What do you…Oh,” Audrey sighed as she leaned over to see. “Freddie…I’ll call it in and I should probably head to the station to wait for info.”

“Okay. I need to head to the docks for a shipment pretty soon, but I’ll be available after that if you need any help,” he offered, admitting that much in something of a test for the new laid-back version of Audrey. They could never have worked before, but maybe things could be different now. He could hope at least. 

“Just be careful,” she told him. “Since this happened at your business someone will probably be hunting you down for a statement at some point.” 

“I will be,” he said with a smirk, feeling that spark of hope grow. It had been a long time since Audrey had tried to bust him at anything or even blackmail him, but she had never completely approved of any of his less than legal activities. She didn’t even bat an eye this time and even warned him about a potential problem. That was a good sign. “I’ll watch the body if you want to go grab us some lunch to go while we wait for the CSIs.”

Audrey nodded and thanked him as she headed inside and placed their usual orders, asking for them to be bagged separately. She got back only minutes before the CSIs arrived and she and Duke were free to go. Duke decided to stick around to talk to Nathan or Dwight now though rather than have them hunt him down later. Audrey was just pulling onto the main road when Nathan turned in, giving her a wave which she returned. She’d already gotten the preliminary report from Gloria and would be getting more details hopefully soon. 

That didn’t end up being one of those easy to solve cases and she ended up going over the clues until late. It wasn’t until Duke called her and let her know that he’d just gotten his arm cut open in a dream and the cut was actually there that she figured out what was going on. She immediately told him not to go back to sleep and then started making phone calls to tell everyone else the same before she started trying to figure out how this new aspect changed any patterns they might have found. At least now she had an excuse to work through the night. 

It wasn’t until late morning and eight coffees later before she figured out the connection and she fought the urge to smack herself for not seeing it before. It was just something so simple that it had been overlooked until now. The only thing every incident had in common was the newspaper at the scene. Freddie had been passed out on a stack of them she remembered. She rushed out to find Vince and Dave and took the opportunity to grab some lunch of her own when she found them sitting outside at the bakery as they tried to narrow it down. 

They quickly ruled out anything in the printing procedure since none of that had changed in years and then started brainstorming ideas before heading back to the newspaper office to start going through looking for any pictures that might be triggering some kind of dream trouble. Two hours later they gave up on that idea and started looking into delivery methods and figured out that everyone who’d had an incident was on the same delivery route so Audrey went to talk to the girl who delivered them. By the time that got settled it was almost the middle of the night again and as soon as Audrey sent a group ‘all clear’ text and let Carrie out to head home, she wasted no time passing out in bed and she was sure that she wasn’t the only one. 

She didn’t wake up until almost noon when she wrote up a quick report for Dwight over coffee before heading downstairs and using the Gull’s fax machine to send it in. There was no point in driving all the way to the station to do so and she desperately hoped for a lazy day. Well lazyish at least since she planned to go through all the research that Vince and Dwight had given her and get ready to share what she and Duke had. She was still flipping through their folder when Duke knocked on her door and she called for him to come in and he jumped right in to help. 

They spent the afternoon going through and adding or revising their notes and as Duke cooked dinner, they discussed how much of what they had they were willing to share and when Duke left after dinner, Audrey worked on copying their work over into a new notebook to take in the next time she got a call, which only ended up being the next day and this time it was Duke calling her in while he was rushing Vince and Dave towards his decompression chamber. She got to the scene about the same time as Nathan did and they went through the evidence together rather than her waiting until he filled her in. With Duke involved, she didn’t want to wait just in case. 

Nathan didn’t go with her to talk to Vince and Dave since they would likely be leading her directly to the troubled person, he wasn’t needed and could just get a statement for the file later on. He was doing his best to give her as much space as he could while still doing his job. Audrey was glad that she had gone herself when it turned out that Jack Driscoll was the troubled person causing it and they barely avoided another disaster before he managed to lock himself in the chamber and she got him talked down. That led to trying to find his brother though which got a lot more complicated before Duke managed to save the day by ‘procuring’ a set of pressure suits for deep water diving. He wouldn’t let her go alone though, mostly since she was completely unfamiliar with the equipment, so the two of them set off for the long walk to get to Aiden Driscoll and get him talked down. 

This time, since it wasn’t so late and the station was on the way home anyway, Audrey went in to write up her report and also give Dwight the copies of her and Duke’s research and he goggled a bit at it as he flipped through it. “You got all this in four days? Even with all the troubles going on?” he asked incredulously, admitting to himself that bringing Duke in was apparently the right call since he could recognize Duke’s handwriting on a lot of the copied pages. 

“We’re highly motivated,” she chuckled. “And I have quite a bit of insight from the barn that helps.” 

“I can see that,” Dwight said in shock. “Well thank you. I’ll pass it on to Vince and see if we can’t get anywhere with it.” 

“You’re welcome. Your research helped a lot,” she told him. “But now we’re gonna have to try and take into account how families that have never been troubled before are suddenly getting them, so that’s going to be a nightmare.”

“Yeah, it really is,” Dwight sighed heavily. “For now though we should call it a night. Never know when the next disaster will pop up.” 

“Don’t I know it,” she chuckled. “Goodnight.”


	7. Chapter 7

Once she got home, she found Duke waiting for her. He was as on edge about the new troubles as the rest of them and a quick brainstorming session led to him sleeping on her couch to make sure that she wasn’t having some kind of sleepwalking fugue state and doing it herself. As far as they knew, creating new troubles wasn’t something that just anyone could do. The next morning they were both woken by Duke’s phone ringing incessantly before he finally answered it. It was a short call before he told her, “That was Nate. Squatch is missing. Needs all hands on deck.”

“Give me two minutes to get dressed and we’ll go.” She was already grabbing the first clothes she could get her hands on, not really caring that it was a one room apartment. It wasn’t like she’d never gotten dressed in front of Duke before. She finished quickly, grabbed her gun and keys and followed Duke back out the door. Since they were going to the same place they might as well ride together. As they walked into the station, Nathan put a finger to his lips and put the phone call on speakerphone and heard Dwight’s voice. 

Duke quickly figured out where Dwight was from the clues as soon as he mentioned the illegal poker games. “I know where he is,” Duke admitted. When Nathan gave him a look he said, “Look, I just play poker. That’s it. Come on. I’ll show you where.” 

Busting in to get Dwight was easy and then they found someone else there too. Someone else that Audrey recognized from the barn. Someone else that they had been holding prisoner. For some reason he gave her the creeps, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Maybe it was just the connection to the barn. Clearly the other two were the bad guys so that would make him one of the good ones, supposedly. She decided to trust him for now, but keep her eyes open. Learning that he had amnesia wasn’t particularly surprising given the nature of the barn, so she started trying to help jog his memories while Nathan and Dwight were questioning the suspects. 

Duke decided to stick around in case they needed any help, especially when Dwight left, but when he got the call from one of the girls at the Gull that Dwight was tearing up the Cape Rouge he went after him. When he got there, he found Dwight in a full on paranoid delusion. He kept accusing Duke of everything under the sun and when Duke tried to calm him down, Dwight tased him and then arrested him. Shows what he got for trying to help. They got back to the station to find Nathan apparently being affected by the same paranoid delusions and Audrey at the end of her rope. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be much help after being cuffed to the table and all. 

When Audrey realized that Dwight was in the same boat, she had enough. She snatched a set of handcuff keys and tossed them to Duke before grabbing Dwight’s taser and shooting Nathan with it. Duke freed himself in under a second and had Dwight on the table and William jumped in to cuff Dwight instead. When William seemed to remember the location of the box, up at the lookout, Duke tossed Audrey his truck keys, remembering that she’d mentioned that Lexi could drive a stick and told her, “Take my truck. I’ll stay and keep an eye on these two.” She helped him get Nathan cuffed to the table too before she went with William at least. 

Once Nathan woke up, Duke easily figured out why Audrey had looked like she was about ten seconds from completely losing her shit and shooting him. Apparently whatever was affecting him had him even more focused on Audrey than before as he started in on Duke about taking advantage of Audrey’s vulnerability and grief at losing their son in an attempt to get close to her but how she would get over being mad at him soon and then everything would be okay. With Dwight going off on him about all the awful things that Duke had supposedly done, everything from killing any random missing person to stealing the last doughnut from the break room, Duke was seriously about ready to shoot someone too. 

It seemed like forever, but then finally they came back to themselves after some kind of black ball of goo came flying out of their heads and out the door which coincided with the two guys they’d arrested suddenly being gone too. At least they were clear-headed enough now not to blame him for it and they were out the door going after Audrey. If these guys were loose again, they would probably be after William which meant Audrey would end up in the crossfire. 

Audrey followed William up to the lookout only to find that her instincts had been right on the money to start with. William was definitely not one of the good guys. She did her best to keep him talking. To get as much information as she could as she tried to find a way out of the situation. She wondered how it was she had fragments of all kinds of other information, but if he was to be believed, he’d been a significant part of her life and she had nothing at all about him. It wasn’t until he lost his patience and grabbed her head, zapping her with that electricity thing they had between them, that she realized why even as she lost consciousness. He’d blocked it. He’d been in the barn too. He’d realized what it was doing and didn’t want her to get the information that he was a villain from the barn’s point of view. 

She jolted awake just as Duke fell to his knees beside her and she grabbed him in a frantic hug that he returned just as urgently. He’d feared the worst when he saw her laying motionless in the middle of the field. He held her tightly as his heart gradually returned to its normal rhythm. Once he was calmer, he got up and helped her to her feet just as Dwight and Nathan finished checking the area and Audrey told them what they needed to know, mainly that William was the one changing the troubles and giving people new ones and that the two guys were his henchmen and some kind of golems. She gave Duke the rest of the story on the way home. 

Duke was relieved to hear it for the most part. At least the fact that it was someone doing it intentionally didn’t mean that the troubles were evolving on their own and risking making all of their research useless. When he asked if she’d learned anything else that might be useful, she told him about the way he’d knocked her out and that it had jogged loose a lot of information, but she needed some time to try and piece all the fragments together, so they decided to just go over it during their usual coffee and breakfast session the next day. 

They didn’t get a chance to do that though as half the town had been woken up by what seemed like an earthquake. Duke and Audrey got to their cars at the same, both on the phone trying to figure out what had happened which led them to a freaking volcano of all things and they quickly jumped in to help. Duke started digging people out and ferrying them out of the area while Audrey quickly found the troubled person who caused it and got her calmed down and together before joining the rescue attempt. That took up the entire day and by the time they were done it was late and all anyone wanted to do was crash so the brainstorming session was put off. 

When Audrey woke up on the floor of her empty apartment, she sighed heavily. Clearly this was going to be one of those Haven days. She got up and headed downstairs, noticing her car gone and that the Gull was a bait shop and yep. She was right. By the time she got to the main road, her bare feet were killing her. And were pretty cold. She was more than a little relieved to see the Haven PD van drive by and then stop and turn around. When Duke got out…with a badge…her eyes widened and she couldn’t help but laugh. Realizing that he didn’t know her at all and that he had no idea about the troubles was definitely a kicker and she found herself at the hospital for a psych eval. 

She was just starting to come to the conclusion that maybe she should be trying to find a way to keep this world when William turned up and made it clear that wasn’t happening and the day just got even worse from there. Not that she couldn’t see the irony of Duke arresting her and she was sure that when this was all over she would find it hysterical, but that didn’t help her now. At least she’d gotten him to trust her at least a little bit and they managed to track down William. When William shot Duke, she felt her heart stop and had to forcibly remind herself that he would be okay. They would get the old Haven back and Duke would be just fine. This one wasn’t real. 

When her alarm went off and she was back in her bed again, she jumped up and bolted for the door, heading to find Duke, meeting him at the bottom of the stairs as he was on his way up with the usual two cups of coffee. Both of them got knocked out of his hands though as she barreled into him hugging him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” 

“Good morning to you too,” he said amusedly as he rubbed her back trying to calm her down. “What happened?” he finally asked as she stepped back, a little more put together. 

“A Haven thing,” she told him. “I’ll tell you about it in a few, but I gotta call Nathan first. Sorry about the coffee,” she finally realized. 

“That’s okay. You more than made up for it,” he joked with a smirk. “I’ll just grab us some more while you make your call and meet you upstairs?”

By the time he met her back upstairs, she had finished giving Nathan the info to check on Cliff, so she settled down to give him the full story, including the confirmation that she was right. That it was her original self that created the troubles in the first place and that William had been her partner in it. Before they could get any deeper though, Nathan knocked on the door. He’d found Cliff shot. William had gotten to him, and for once Audrey wasn’t balking at working with him as they tracked William down. All she wanted was William gone. Unfortunately, that ended up landing her in the hospital too when Nathan shot him. Apparently, he hadn’t realized what she meant when she told him they were connected. That or he thought that she would be acceptable collateral damage if it meant getting rid of William, but she was relatively certain it was the former. Especially given his reaction.


	8. Chapter 8

Once Audrey got out of surgery and woke up, she found Duke sitting next to her bed holding her hand and she smiled at him as she groggily whispered, “hey.” 

Duke gave a relieved smile back and told her, “It’s about time you woke up lazybones.” 

“Blame the ones who gave me the good drugs,” she chuckled. “How long was I out?” 

“About sixteen hours,” he told her. “It’s almost morning.” 

“You were here all night?” she asked both touched and worried. “Did you sleep at all?” 

“I dozed off in the chair for a while. I’m fine,” he assured her. “Nate wanted me to tell you that he was sorry. He didn’t realize that shooting William would hurt you too.” He wanted to change the subject before she realized that they shouldn’t have let him stay and that he’d bribed the nurse. 

“I guess I could have been clearer about the whole us being connected thing,” she admitted before the nurse came in and interrupted them. When they went to kick Duke out while they examined her she told him, “If you’re planning to stay would you mind going to grab our notebooks so we can get some work done finally? I have a few ideas.” 

“Sure thing. I’ll be back soon,” Duke easily agreed. 

Once he got back, she flipped through, double checking some of her notes before they started brainstorming. “So here’s what I’m thinking. It’s kind of a long shot, and a pretty big deal, but…” she trailed off, biting her lip nervously. 

Duke chuckled at her demeanor and said, “I’m sure we can work with at least part of it. Shoot.” 

“Okay, so you know how William and I are connected, right?” Duke nodded. “Well that’s why he’s able to affect the troubles. I’ve figured out that the ability to use the Aether…the black goo stuff…it comes from me. It’s also why he’s immune to the troubles too. That link.”

“Okay,” Duke said. “I’m following you so far.”

“Well…if I were to link with someone else…it might /un/link me from William,” she told him. 

“I can see that,” Duke nodded thoughtfully. “Then we could get rid of him and be down one problem at least.” 

“Maybe we could even kill two birds with one stone,” she told him the hard part. “If I liked with you…”

When she trailed off his mind started working as he tried to figure out where she was going with that. “You think making me immune to the troubles will give me more control over my trouble?” he guessed. “But I would still have to kill people to get rid of theirs.”

“Maybe not. I mean, getting rid of your trouble wouldn’t be possible, but if we’re linked you might be able to modify it to take the troubles away without killing people,” she suggested. 

“I see what you mean by a long shot,” Duke said as he tried to wrap his brain around that. “That’s a lot of maybes and hopefullys there.”

“Yeah, I know we have a long way to go before this is anything like a working theory,” Audrey admitted. “Plus, it’s kind of a big thing too. I mean, it would make you immortal for one thing. And your trouble would never be able to be gotten rid of.” 

“I wouldn’t say that. I mean, there’s still Wade. Once all the other troubles are gone, we could get him to activate his and I could take it which should get rid of mine too,” Duke suggested, tabling the immortality idea for not. 

“Maybe, but not necessarily,” Audrey told him. “You’d be immune to the troubles remember?”

“Which means that there’s a good chance that taking Wade’s wouldn’t affect me because of the immunity,” Duke nodded before another reason dawned on him. “And we couldn’t do it anyway because my trouble only works when someone’s trouble is active which means there’s always a chance that we could miss whole families and we’d need it later.” 

“But on the plus side, if there aren’t any more troubled people left you won’t have to worry about triggering it,” she pointed out. 

“That’s true. I guess I could live with that,” Duke shrugged. If it meant saving Haven from the troubles for good there wasn’t much he couldn’t live with. “If we did go this route, how would the linking thing work and are we even sure that it would take since you’re already linked to William?” 

“I’m not sure if it would work, no,” she shook her head. “But just like the troubles it’s all based on intent so…”

“Without the hatred component I’m hoping,” he joked before getting back to the important part. “So how does the link work? What would we need to do?” 

“Well…” she blushed brightly, looking down and picking at the blanket that was half covering her. 

“Oh come on. It can’t be that bad,” he chuckled. 

“Well…we can only be linked when we’re as connected as possible, so…”

Duke’s lips twitched amusedly as he started to realize where she was going with that and judging by her obvious nervous embarrassment, he was pretty sure he was right. “You mean like sex?”

“Yeah. And…right at the moment of…you know,” she said blushing even brighter. 

“Yeah, I get you,” he said, forcing himself to seem unaffected by the idea. “And that’s something that you’d be okay with?” 

She nodded slowly, but told him, “I get if you’re not though. I mean, it’s a big thing and…”

“Audrey,” he cut her off with a laugh. “You may not have gotten the memo, but I’m a guy. As a rule, we don’t generally say no to those sorts of ideas,” he joked. Honestly if it wasn’t about saving the whole town, he might actually say no. If for no other reason than to keep his heart in as much of one piece as possible once it was over. 

Audrey couldn’t help her own laugh at that before forcing her embarrassment back now that they had that part out of the way, and she got back to the important part. “So do you think that this link is something you could live with if we can get the kinks worked out and turn it into a viable theory?” 

“Audrey, there’s not much I wouldn’t do to end the troubles once and for all,” he told her. “If this ends up being the way, I’ll deal with whatever I need to. Immortality, keeping my trouble forever, the works. Hell, even if it just ends up getting rid of William and gets him to stop making it all worse, it’s a decent trade.” 

The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out how to make a half-baked idea into a decent theory in between interruptions from doctors and nurses who were baffled on how she was managing to heal so quickly. By the time she was released around dinnertime that evening, completely healed, they hadn’t had any luck figuring much out with the theory. They stopped for dinner out as Duke took her home and they decided to give it a rest for now and sleep on it. Maybe something would come to them. The problem was that there were too many unknowns. Too many things that could go wrong. They didn’t have nearly enough information to make it even halfway safe and neither of them had any idea where they could get the information they would need. 

The next morning, they had barely gotten started when she got a call from Dwight. There was some trouble causing people all over town to drop dead for no discernable reason. This one was serious enough that Duke gladly jumped in to help. Only the fact that William couldn’t hurt Audrey any more than any of them could hurt William had him letting her go with him without too much of an argument. Hopefully, she would be able to get some information from him both about this trouble and maybe even something they needed for their crazy idea. 

While she was off with William, Duke joined Nathan and Dwight in their investigation, trying to find some kind of lead or connection between the victims. When she got back, they all noticed that she was a little paler than usual and they soon figured out why when she updated them on what was happening and what William proposed to fix it. Dwight was the first one to pick up on something that they hadn’t wanted anyone to know. “Wait, why would he think that you can make a trouble at all? Unless…”

Audrey sighed. “It turns out my original personality, way back in the fifteen hundreds, was the one to create the troubles in the first place. That’s why I’ve always been the one to come back and fix them.”

“It wasn’t her though,” Duke jumped in defensively. “She’s Audrey now and Audrey would never do that.” 

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Nathan said as though it should be obvious.

“No, I know,” Dwight agreed. “I’m not saying that it’s her fault. Just trying to understand the situation.” The last thing he wanted was to piss off Duke in the middle of a crisis like this even if he didn’t agree. “I’m gonna vote no on the giving an innocent person a new trouble,” he still had to say. 

“Definitely,” Audrey nodded. “We’ll find another way.” Unfortunately, it didn’t end up working that way and the next time the baby cried, more people dropped dead and they were at a complete loss. 

Once they got the baby calm and taking a nap, Duke sighed and told Audrey, “I think it’s time to go ahead with our plan.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Plan? What plan?” Dwight asked confusedly. 

“A plan to hopefully end the troubles forever,” Duke told him. 

“Wait…you have a plan for that and you haven’t done it yet? Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?” Dwight asked both hopeful and irritated. So much for sharing research. 

“Because for one thing, it’s not so much a /plan/ as a hail mary with more holes than swiss cheese at the moment. And for two, we just thought of it yesterday,” Audrey told him before turning to Duke and saying, “Which is why this is a bad idea.”

“Do we have a better one?” Duke asked pointedly. “Other than killing the baby of course, which I’m guessing we’re all gonna go with a big fat no on.” 

“No, you can kill me,” Ben said as he came out looking for them. “I know about the Crocker curse. You kill me and this ends.” 

“Okay, Ben that’s really noble of you and all, but…” Audrey started to say before Duke cut her off. 

“Okay so that gives us four options. Kill him, kill the baby, start handing out troubles and hope one works, or our hail mary,” Duke told her. 

“Well when you put it like that,” Audrey huffed realizing that she didn’t have a choice anymore. 

“Okay, how long does the baby usually nap for?” Duke asked a confused Ben. 

“Usually about three or four hours,” he told them.

“That’s plenty of time,” Duke nodded. 

“What if it doesn’t work?” Nathan asked worriedly. 

“Then killing Ben would be the best option, but only if he’s really sure,” Duke said seriously. He wasn’t going to be a murderer, but if he really wanted to volunteer then Duke wouldn’t take that away from him. It was his choice to make that sacrifice. 

“What do you need us to do?” Dwight asked as the four of them started walking towards the cars leaving Ben behind, desperately hoping that whatever their plan was would actually work, but realizing that there wasn’t time to get the full info right now. 

“If you two can go find William and be ready to take him down…” Duke started. 

“But the link with Audrey…”

“Should be broken soon,” Audrey said finally finding words again. “But start with shooting him in the arm just in case so we have time to call you off if it doesn’t work.” 

“How sure are you that it’ll work?” Dwight asked. 

“That part? About seventy percent sure. It’s the rest of it that’s more difficult,” Audrey told him as she and Duke got in his truck. 

Once they were on the road, Duke told her, “You know you can still back out right? I mean, I know it’s the best way, but we can keep looking for another one. One that doesn’t involve having to sleep with me.” He had noticed how much she hated this idea, despite it being her idea in the first place and no matter what it meant for anyone else, the idea of sleeping with her when she clearly didn’t want it turned his stomach. 

“No, Duke. That’s not what bothers me about this,” she assured him. 

“Then what?” he asked, wanting to get this talked out as much as possible while they had time. If for no other reason than so that he could manage to perform. 

“Do you even realize how risky this is for you?” she asked. “We’re going to have to use the Aether for this remember?” That had been one of the many hard parts of the idea. Getting their hands on that. William had just handed it over though. “It could end up hurting you, making your trouble worse, even killing you.” 

Duke reached over and took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Audrey, I know,” he said softly and firmly. “I know all that and I’m willing to take the risk. That part…that’s /my/ choice. You just worry about the parts that are /your/ choice, kay?” 

“Yeah. Okay,” she sighed, seeing his point. There wasn’t that much risk to her though. He was the one making all the sacrifices in this. “I’m good with my part,” she added when she saw him waiting expectantly for a decision as they pulled up at the Gull. 

“Your place or mine,” he said amusedly, trying to lighten the mood despite the seriousness of the question. 

“Doesn’t matter to me,” she shrugged, nerves starting to get the better of her. 

Duke decided that he wanted her to be as comfortable as possible for this so he went towards the stairs and she followed him up. Once they were upstairs and the door was closed and locked behind them he hesitated for a moment before he asked, “Do you have condoms up here?” If not, he might need to run down to the Rouge for a minute. 

She shook her head and said, “I’m on the pill. And it would probably be best to stack the deck as much in our favor as possible and not have any barriers if you know what I mean.” If he still wanted to use one, then they’d manage, but she didn’t want to take any chances here if it could be avoided. 

He nodded in acceptance of that and stepped close to her and brushed her hair behind her ear with one hand that lingered on her cheek and the other one went to her side. He forced his breathing to stay slow as he said in almost a whisper, “You’re sure about this?” 

“Like I’m gonna disappoint you by taking the fun part away now?” she tried her own joke to lighten the mood and try and banish some of her nerves, but it fell flat. 

Duke frowned and took a step back, looking at her scrutinizingly. He had to make sure that one thing was clear before they even considered going here. “I hope you know that if there was any other way, I would take it. I hate that you have to do this when you don’t really want it…want /me/.” 

She furrowed her brow, hearing the hurt and insecurity in his voice. She hadn’t realized that he saw it like that. “No, Duke, that’s not…I mean…” she took a few deep breaths for courage before she told him. “I do want you,” she said shakily. 

“Since when?” he asked skeptically. “I seem to remember the last time we were in this kind of situation, you jumped away like you’d been electrocuted.” 

Audrey blinked in shock for a second, turning that moment over in her mind and trying to figure out where he would have gotten that idea before she took his hand and led him to the couch to sit. “That wasn’t at all what you’re apparently thinking,” she told him, more nervous talking about this than she was about the sex but knowing that it needed to be done. They needed to clear the air here. She didn’t want him going into this thinking like that. 

“Do we really have time to get into this right now?” Duke tried to put it off. He doubted this conversation was going to go anywhere conducive to setting the mood. 

“I don’t think even you’re good enough to go three hours,” she teased amusedly. “We have time.” When he didn’t try to interrupt her again, she told him, “I stopped in Colorado because I could tell that you were holding back. Your heart wasn’t in it.” 

“More like my heart was /too/ in it,” he muttered, not actually intending to say that out loud but as soon as he realized he did, he tried to distract from it before she could say anything. “Why wouldn’t you say anything then? Why just…leave?” 

“Because I only had a few weeks left and you were the only thing holding me together most days,” she told him, filing away that muttered comment for later, but it did give her a little bit more courage to keep going. Not a lot, but enough to keep her from clamming up completely. “You were my rock, Duke and I wasn’t about to risk losing that by pushing for something that you didn’t seem to want. I /told/ you that.”

“No, I remember very clearly what you said which was, and I quote, ‘Twenty days isn’t enough to fix our friendship if I screw this up.’ That could mean so many things,” he pointed out. 

“What did you think it meant?” she asked softly. 

“I thought it meant that you knew you’d regret it when you sobered up and didn’t want it to come between us,” he said honestly. “Then when you just walked away…”

“Okay, I did /not/ ‘walk away’,” she had to interrupt. “I stepped outside to get some air. If I was walking away I would have gone farther. I wanted to stay close in case you changed your mind, but if I’d stayed in that room, I would have ended up throwing caution into the wind and risked it all anyway.” 

“Oh,” Duke said simply as he tried to reframe that night in his memories with this new information. 

“The last thing I wanted was to end up pushing you into something you didn’t want. Something that /you/ would regret later,” she said leadingly, hoping that he would give her /something/ in return. Some further insight into his views of that night. 

“You thought I didn’t want it?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“That’s how it seemed to me.” 

“No, I was just…scared,” he confessed. 

“Of?” she coaxed gently. 

“We could never have worked,” Duke sidled around the question. “I mean, a cop and a criminal? We would have ended up ruining each other. Pulling in opposite directions and one or both of us would have lost ourselves in the process.” 

“That seems rather detailed for an in the moment thought,” she pointed out that she knew what he was doing by answering the question on tangent. 

“That part I figured out later,” he admitted. 

“Then what was it right then?” she asked, reaching over to take his hand. 

Duke took a deep shaky breath, knowing that she deserved the full answer after as open as she’d been about her own perspective. “When you kissed me…it was like…my entire world just…shifted in that moment and I knew…I knew that you had the power to break me more than anyone else ever had and I just…for someone like me, that’s…” 

Audrey got what he meant now when he said that his heart was /too/ in it and when she saw how he was struggling for words, she couldn’t help but do it again. She leaned forward and kissed him. Not as desperately as last time. This time was soft and slow and he responded the same way as his hand instinctively moved to her neck, thumb brushing over her cheek. “You’re still scared?” she asked in a whisper as she pulled back. 

“Terrified,” he breathed out. 

“But you still want to do this?” 

Duke swallowed heavily and leaned his forehead against hers as he tried to get his thoughts in order before he said, “We’re talking about ending the troubles and saving the entire town. My heart is a small price to pay, don’t you think?” 

Audrey ran a hand through his hair that had come undone from his ponytail and moved so that she was looking him in the eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you, Duke,” she vowed. “And I’m not a cop anymore.” 

Duke closed his eyes and nodded slowly with a barely audible, “I know.”


	10. Chapter 10

“There’s something I didn’t tell you about this whole linking thing,” she decided to say, hoping that she wouldn’t regret it. 

“What is it?” his eyes snapped open and he looked worriedly at her. 

“I told you how it works on intent, but what I didn’t mention was the emotional component,” she said with forced calm. “The fact that there’s not any way this works strongly enough to override my link with William without me being in love with you.” 

Duke blinked at her for a long moment as those last few words looped in his head before he leaned forward and kissed her slow and deep before whispering, “I’ve been in love with you for a long time, but…you’re not a cop anymore…” 

“No. I’m not,” she said happily as her hands trailed lovingly through his hair and over his face. 

Duke grinned as he gave her another short kiss, hoping he wasn’t setting himself up for a fall here, but was completely powerless to stop it anyway. “Now I really wish this wasn’t just about a means to an end.” 

“It’s not,” she said earnestly, having spend some time last night laying in bed thinking about this very subject. “Our love is going to save this whole town…assuming it works of course…how could it get better than that?” 

“Well, when you put it like that,” Duke chuckled pulling her in for another kiss as he lifted her up to carry her to the bed. 

“I think the only problem we’re gonna have is remembering to use the Aether at the right time,” she realized with a breathy laugh as he laid her down and his lips trailed down her neck. 

“Mmm then we’ll just have to keep trying until we get it right,” Duke murmured as he slid a hand under her shirt wrapping around her side. 

“Well, when you put it like that,” she replied the same way he had as she slid his overshirt off his shoulders. She knew that they didn’t have forever to keep trying and that he knew that too, but she wasn’t going to pile on the pressure by pointing it out. Her hands moved over his shoulders and biceps, memorizing the muscles there, sitting up enough for him to tug off her shirt before doing the same to his muscle shirt. 

The fact that they were actually on a time-table here made him not feel so badly about rushing things, but he’d been wanting this for so long he didn’t think he could have slowed down if he’d tried. His hands moved to her pants and he quickly shucked them off along with his own and then he was back over top of her, kissing her passionately. One hand kneaded possessively over her skin while the other caressed her cheek and hair as that elbow held him up. When her hands began to grope needily at him, he shifted position to slide slowly inside her wet heat, a breathy moan pulling from his throat. 

Audrey arched up off the bed at his entrance, feeling every inch of his thick length gradually fill her up and she resisted the urge to try and speed him up. She moved the hand that wasn’t gripping his shoulder blades to his cheek as their eyes met and her breath hitched at the complete love and devotion she could see shining in his bottomless chocolate orbs. “I love you, Duke,” the words pulled from her lips almost against her will. 

“And I love you, Audrey,” Duke replied, lost in the same trance she was as he continued the slow slide in and out of her before capturing her lips in another sensual kiss. He couldn’t keep up the slow pace for too long though. Not with as long as he’d been dreaming of this moment and eventually they both sped up, hands roaming frantically and gripping anywhere they could gain purchase against the sweat slick skin. In the interest of ‘stacking the deck in their favor’ as she’d called it, he was fully intending to bring them to completion at the same time. Couldn’t get more connected than that and when he could feel her getting close, he panted out, “Audrey…the stuff…” 

She grabbed frantically for the nightstand where she’d put the ball of Aether and quickly crushed it in her hand, holding back until the right moment and she felt her own orgasm wash over her at the same moment that he tensed and she slapped her black hand over his heart as they rode out the waves. It was only a second before the electricity crackled between them at every point their skin was touching and they both cried out in ecstasy as it brought another wave over both of them. 

By the time they were spent, it was all Duke could do to roll to the side enough not to crush her when he couldn’t hold his weight up anymore and they both panted for breath. “I take it…that means…it worked,” he gasped out after a few minutes once he could form words again. 

“The link did…at least,” she responded before rolling over against his side and his arm wrapped around her instinctively. She knew that they couldn’t enjoy the afterglow for too long with everything else they needed to do, but they could have a few minutes at least. “Duke?” 

“Hmm?” he responded blissfully, dancing his fingers up her bare arm that was slung over his stomach as he turned to look at her. 

“Tell me this isn’t just a one-time thing?” she asked hopefully. She knew that it had been implied but she couldn’t help the sudden insecurity that was hitting her now in the absence of it being specifically defined. 

“Sweetheart, I’m yours for as long as you can put up with me,” he promised, leaning his head against hers. 

“Good thing we have forever now then,” she sighed happily turning to press a kiss to his chest. 

“We’ll see,” fell from his lips without his permission as he desperately hoped that she was right. That she wouldn’t abandon him soon enough like everyone else he’d ever cared about had. 

“Yeah. You will,” she said earnestly, propping up on her elbow and pressing a lingering kiss to his lips. She couldn’t blame him for being scared. She was too and she didn’t have anywhere near the baggage he did, not that she knew that much of it. Just that it was there. She knew enough about what had happened with Evi and that he’d grown up on the streets spending most of his life homeless, and just in the less than two years since she’d come to Haven she’d seen far too many people walk away from him after a glimpse into his life. She wasn’t about to be one of them though. “I /know/ you, Duke. And I love you. And I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Same here on all counts,” he assured her, brushing his knuckles down her cheek. “I’ll always love you.” He kissed her one more time before pulling himself away. “As much as I wish we could stay here all day…”

“I know,” she sighed sadly as she sat up and reached for her phone to call Dwight. “Go ahead,” she said when he picked up as Duke trailed his fingers lightly over her back, resting his other hand behind his head as he watched her, trying not to betray his concern. He knew that this new link had gone through, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the one to William was broken and if it wasn’t, were they all three linked now? Would he get the same injuries that William did through Audrey? 

Dwight signaled Nathan on the radio from his hiding spot immediately on the other side of William to prevent the bullet from curving and Nathan fired a bullet into William’s arm from their hiding place. “You still good?” he asked Audrey. 

“Not even a scratch,” she told him with a grin hearing two more gunshots quickly afterwards. Normally she would never advocate for that kind of execution, but in this case it was necessary. He was too dangerous to live. He still had the ability to make troubles, command over the Aether, and clearly had no boundaries after what he’d done to that poor innocent baby. The courts wouldn’t be able to touch him, so this was the only way. 

“He’s dead,” Dwight told her a moment later after confirming it. 

“Okay. Good. Thank you. Meet us back at the Harker’s?” she asked, getting an affirmative before hanging up. “William’s dead,” she told Duke. 

“Normally I’d be against that kind of murder, but in this case…good,” Duke said with a nod before pulling himself out of bed. “We got time for a quick shower before we go?” 

Audrey looked at the clock realizing that it had only been an hour and a half since the baby went down for his nap, so she nodded. “A quick one, yeah.” She knew it would put them arriving at the Harker’s long after Nathan and Dwight, but she also knew that if they didn’t then Nathan’s sensitive nose would know exactly what they’d been doing, and she didn’t want to risk a confrontation right now. Especially since they were going to need to use him to experiment, his being the easiest trouble to know right away what worked and what didn’t. 

The did end up lingering a little bit in their shared shower, but still kept it relatively quick, more rinsing than washing. They quickly realized that Duke’s hair elastic had been lost god only knew where. Audrey had teasingly offered him a bright pink scrunchie to use first before relenting under his amused glare and handing him a basic black elastic which he accepted and she used the pink scrunchie for herself to make it less obvious that her hair was wet from the shower. She planned to tell them that she’d switched the link from William to Duke, not that she could have gotten around that part anyway, but she did hope to avoid the ‘how’ part. She wasn’t really comfortable with people knowing so much about her sex life.


	11. Chapter 11

During the drive to the Harker house, Audrey and Duke spit-balled ideas that they could test to see if his trouble could work without killing anyone and he even tried just willing it away from Nathan as they drove, knowing that he would call if it actually worked but apparently it didn’t. They still had a few other things to try once they got there though. Dwight and Nathan met them as soon as they drove up and Duke grabbed Nathan’s hand like he was shaking it, trying to pull the trouble from him that way. “You feel anything?” Duke asked hopefully. 

“I feel /you/,” Nathan said almost in awe, turning Duke’s hand over in his and looking at the joined hands confusedly. 

“Yeah, but do you feel anything else?” Duke asked. 

“No. Just you. How…”

“I linked with Duke to override my link to William. Now he shares my immunity to the troubles,” Audrey explained. 

“But /his/ trouble?” Dwight asked curiously. 

“We can’t get rid of his trouble, but we’re hoping that this will give him more control over it and even be able to use it without having to kill anyone,” Audrey explained. 

“I see what you mean by hail mary,” Dwight nodded. He’d seen enough of their notes to know that they didn’t have anywhere near enough information to have anything beyond the vaguest of ideas that there was a small chance that it could possibly work like that. “But even if all it did was get rid of William, that’s something at least.” 

“So, you were trying to remove my trouble? That’s why you asked?” Nathan realized. 

“Yeah, but there’s still a few more things we can try,” Duke told him, pulling out his pocketknife and opening it before handing it over. Nathan easily got the hint and pulled a cut across his palm, moving to let the blood drip into Duke’s hand. The blood sank into his skin and his eyes got the silver glow and he tensed up for a moment before relaxing with a relieved sigh. “Well at least one part of the control helped. I don’t feel the bloodlust anymore and just a slight rush.” He reached out and grabbed the front of Nathan’s shirt and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. “And I still have the strength,” he said as he set him down. “Can you feel anything now?” 

They were all glad that he’d gotten at least that much from the process. None of them liked the bloodlust issue any more than he did and Audrey was the only one who had never ended up taking the brunt of it. “No. Still nothing,” Nathan said sadly. 

“Okay, lets try this,” Duke grabbed the cut hand and tried to pull it directly from his bloodstream and he was pretty sure he could feel it working. 

He knew that it did work when Nathan gasped and winced in pain as he pulled his cut hand away with an, “Ow.” Nathan grinned widely and grabbed Duke in a tight hug. “It hurts,” he said happily.

“I’m glad for you?” Duke chuckled amusedly, knowing how much it meant to Nathan but still feeling weird for saying that about pain. 

“It worked…” Dwight said in awe. “You took his trouble away without killing him.” 

“Apparently so,” Duke grinned as Nathan let him go and he grabbed Audrey around the waist and swung her around happily, planting a kiss on her lips. Both Nathan and Dwight raised their eyebrows at that, but neither of them were particularly surprised. 

“Now the question is whether it will work for the whole family or if you have to get each person individually now,” Audrey pointed out. 

“We’ll test it with Ben since it takes a bigger cut and then just pinprick the baby for a few drops and see if I have a reaction from that?” Duke suggested. 

“That sounds like a good idea, but we should run it by Ben and Gloria first,” Nathan pointed out and they headed to the house to do just that. 

“You’re telling me that you can get rid of the trouble without having to kill anyone?” Gloria asked so desperately hopeful, tear-tracks still shining on her cheeks. 

“It worked with Nathan at least,” Duke told her, not wanting her to get her hopes too high in case there were other factors. 

Gloria reached over and pinched Nathan’s arm, causing him to wince and jerk away and that was all it took to convince her as Ben asked, “What do you need me to do?” 

“Just cut your hand and shake mine,” Duke told him, handing over the pocketknife that he’d wiped off on his shirt since Nathan used it. Ben wasted no time doing so and Duke’s eyes glowed silver again and he was pretty sure that it worked but waited until the transformation passed and then took Ben’s still bloody hand again and got no reaction. 

“Now we need to see if it worked for the baby too,” Dwight told them turning to Gloria who was most likely to have something available. “Do you have a needle or a lancet we can use?”

“You don’t have to cut him too?” Gloria asked hopefully. It would still be better than the alternatives, but she’d prefer to avoid it. 

“Hopefully not,” Audrey told her. “That’s why we just need a few drops to test. If Duke doesn’t have a reaction to it then the baby is cured too and we won’t have to do the full thing.” 

Gloria reached into her purse to find the lancets she used to check her blood sugar while Ben went to go get the baby. Once he got back, Gloria pricked the baby’s finger and squeezed to get the blood flowing, hoping that it had worked and there weren’t people dying right now as he cried, and Duke came over and used his finger to collect the blood to confirm that it had worked and Gloria trapped Duke in a crushing hug babbling thanks and promising him every favor she possibly could and Duke just chuckled amusedly as he patted her back and waited for her to calm down. “Careful or I might call in some of those favors,” he teased. 

“I don’t care if you do,” she told him as she finally let go. “You’ve saved my family. Anything I can do all you ever need to do is ask.”

“Same goes for me,” Ben reached out for a real handshake this time. 

“Honestly, I’m just glad I could help,” Duke told them, a little embarrassed about the gushing thanks. 

“You might as well get used to that,” Audrey whispered in amusement as Gloria moved on to hugging Ben. 

“Is it too late to back out?” Duke said with a grimace. 

“Yes,” five voices chorused at once and then burst into laughter. 

Duke chuckled and shook his head ruefully before turning to Dwight. “Might as well go ahead and get you out of the way.”

“There’s a lot of other people who should get to go ahead of me,” Dwight shook his head to argue. 

“It’s not like I’m gonna run out of juice and you’re right here,” Duke rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, okay then,” Dwight shrugged. When he put it that way, he might as well. “I’ve got my own knife though,” he said as he pulled it from his belt and made a cut on his palm and grabbed Duke’s hand. 

It didn’t take as long this time before Duke let go, having a better handle on how it felt now. “You should be good.” 

Dwight nodded and double checked his vest before firing two shots towards the grass in front of him, not relaxing until a few seconds after they hit. He just gave Duke a grateful nod who returned it just as gratefully. “So, how are you planning to get everyone?” Dwight asked curiously. At least he was assuming Duke planned to cure everyone. 

Duke shrugged. “To be honest, we haven’t thought that far ahead. Remember this idea just popped up yesterday and we had no idea if it would even work. Why don’t you handle that part. Set up a priority list or however you want to handle it and just let me know when and where to be. I’d prefer not to have to go door to door if it can be avoided.”

“There are a few we’ll need to go visit,” Audrey pointed out. “Like the guy who’s spent over a year locked in a pitch black house so that his shadow doesn’t go off killing people and the one who’s trapped in a limbo state in his office.”

“Yeah okay, when I have to, I have to, but I’m not spending the next however long going all over town,” Duke told her.


	12. Chapter 12

“Well it’s gonna take me a little while to organize things so why don’t you go ahead and take him to those two and we can start the rest tomorrow?” Dwight suggested, getting nods. “Do you want me to have them come to you or you come down to the station for it?” he asked Duke. 

Duke considered that for a moment before he decided, “I’ll come to the station. I’d rather not be overrun at home,” he chuckled. 

“Fair enough. I’ll have the first group in around nine tomorrow?” 

“Make it ten,” Duke told him. He had every intention of having a nice morning with Audrey complete with breakfast in bed. When Dwight nodded, they headed back to the trucks. 

Audrey took Duke to the Carrick house and kept hold of James Carrick to keep him tangible long enough for Duke to take the trouble away and he was set on by another crying woman hugging him and babbling thanks which he accepted graciously. She worked for him at the Gull so he wasn’t any less comfortable with her hugs than he was with Gloria’s. He was really hoping that strangers would have a little more control though. Their next stop was the Aarons house. Audrey had found his number and called him to let him know they were on their way and why and he was more than a little relieved. The dark didn’t bother him obviously, being blind and all, but never being able to leave his house was hard. Not to mention that even without seeing it, he could still /feel/ the sun and missed it. He waited inside a closed room next to the door until they came inside and closed the door behind them when he met them there. There was no point making them traverse the house in the dark if they didn’t have to. As soon as Duke told him he was cured, he went outside and just stood in the sun after thanking Duke profusely. 

Since those two were done, Duke and Audrey headed back to the Gull and this time they went to the boat and Duke cooked her a nice dinner before they got back to what they’d been doing earlier and Audrey slept there, curled up in Duke’s arms, and couldn’t remember ever sleeping better in her life. 

The next morning, after their leisurely breakfast in bed, both of them headed to the station. Audrey had decided to keep the job until the bulk of the troubled were cured and then still stay on call for anyone they missed. If nothing else she could help keep things contained. When they got there, Dwight gave them a little update on how he was doing things. They were doing the bulk of the guard first who would then go around to the safe-houses and pull in the most at risk people before getting to the general population. And of course, any trouble that acted up in the meantime would be put to the top of the list. 

Dwight also let them know that Nathan was gone. He’d gotten in this morning to find a letter of resignation on his desk and the officers he’d sent to check Nathan’s house reported that he seemed to have left for good. Duke was a little sad to lose his oldest friend, but had to admit that it was probably safer that way. Now that his help wasn’t needed it wouldn’t be surprising if someone hunted him down over a grudge. Even though the troubles were being cured now, there was still a lot of damage done since the barn incident and a lot of people lost who had grieving families left behind. Audrey didn’t really care that he was gone beyond feeling bad for Duke. 

Jordan had bullied herself to first in line for trouble removal and came in with a suspicious look at Duke. “They tell me that you can take my trouble without killing me now?” 

“Sure can sweetheart,” he smirked. 

“How?” she asked skeptically. 

“Just cut your hand and then give it to me,” Duke told her impatiently. He’d never liked her much and her attitude wasn’t helping. 

“You really don’t want me to do that,” she scoffed. 

“I’m immune to the troubles now. You can’t hurt me,” Duke said smugly. 

“How did that happen? And how did your trouble change?” she asked with narrowed eyes. 

“It’s a long and complicated story and there are probably a lot of people waiting so do you want this or not?” Duke huffed, losing his patience. 

“If this is a trick…” 

“I promise you, Jordan. It’s not a trick,” Audrey said gently. “He’s already taken the troubles from five people including Nathan and Dwight.”

“Fine,” Jordan said, still more than a little skeptical as she pulled off her gloves and took out the knife that she was advised to bring and pulled a cut on her hand before taking Duke’s. When he didn’t crumble in pain she started to have a little hope, but felt a little let down when he just let her go a minute later. “That’s it? I don’t feel any different.” Dwight rolled his eyes and held his hand out to her and when she took it and he didn’t show any signs of pain either she let a smile break across her face and even gave Duke a sincere, “Thank you,” before heading out to send the next person in. 

Aside from a short lunch break Duke kept at it until three that afternoon and had gotten all of the guard members who were currently in or near town. Tomorrow would start with the nearby safe houses, including the Wendigo girls and the troubled that were spread out around the country were already making their way back. No one really knew how to contact the Glendowers but Audrey finally settled on calling Penny to see if she had any way and it turned out there was an emergency method available where she could go to a specific point in a boat and drop a written message. That one, Duke allowed to come to him at the boat and Cole Glendower showed up the fourth night after they started to be cured. He’d had to get the entire clan to shallow waters first so they didn’t drown once they were cured. 

Duke laid down the law with Dwight that it would be volunteer only. If someone wanted to keep their trouble and the family was in agreement, they were more than welcome to do so. Dwight added the disclaimer unless it got out of control and was hurting people. Once Duke assured them that they could change their minds later, Moira and Noelle decided to keep their trouble. At least for now. Bringing people back from the dead could be useful in an emergency after all as they’d learned the hard way. Ray McBreen also decided to keep his and stay out to sea, not wanting his wife or the others that he’d become pretty close with by that point to return to their catatonic states. Then there were a few that they didn’t know /how/ to help since they didn’t have actual bodies like the man who became a part of his house and the woman trapped in the painting of Lady Justice, but otherwise there were a steady stream of troubled people in and out of the station for weeks. 

Duke was more than glad when that was done and he could get back to his life and Audrey promptly quit work at the station and decided to try out being a bartender for a little while at the Gull. She didn’t stick with it for too long though. It wasn’t bad. A decent way to make money, but she didn’t love it enough to keep doing it forever. The fact that she had forever to explore and figure out what she liked and even change jobs whenever she felt like it was more than freeing to someone who only ever existed for a year and a half at a time in the past. 

They had been together for a few months when Audrey moved out of her apartment and onto the Rouge and after a whole year of no troubles Duke convinced her to take a trip with him. She didn’t even ask or care what kind of business he would be conducting on the trip as she easily agreed and soon found herself at home on the water just as much as he was. They always spent a few months a year in Haven though, some of that time taking care of troubles that had been missed in the first round, but mostly just enjoying being home.


End file.
